“The size of the debt concerns me now. Let’s be perfectly straightforward about that,” he said. “In fact the 75% is just the public debt. If you do the whole debt subject to the capital, what we call gross debt, total debt, then you end up with about 100% of the American economy right now. And those numbers concern me right now.”

“Debt to GDP is a ratio,” he said. “It’s got two different pieces to it. It’s the size of the debt, but the denominator is the size of the GDP. And if we can grow GDP quicker than we’re growing the debt, then that ratio will start to come down. And that’s one of things we’re focusing on.”

The administration insists that cutting marginal tax rates and corporate taxes will spur investment, hiring and economic activity, which would ultimately boost long-term GDP growth projections from 2% to 3%.

Pushing tax reform forward

Debt-to-GDP currently stands at 75% and would rise to more than 100% a decade from now based on the current Trump framework, Moody’s Mark Zandi said. Zandi added that even with no changes to tax policy, it would rise to 93%. Furthermore, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates that the current framework will reduce government revenue by $2.4 trillion in the first decade.

“What we’re trying to do with this tax code is to get folks to move their earnings back to the United States to re-establish that connection so that every 1% of corporate increase in profit means a 1% increase to household incomes,” he told Yahoo Finance.

The administration has pushed its tax framework and is now waiting for next steps to move toward legislation.

“I still think there’s a chance to do it in December,” Mulvaney said. “Everything has to go right for that to happen including the Senate voting on the budget this week.”